Fandom: The X-Files Title: Who’s Child is This?PenName: Empress Vader Character(s):Paring(s): CSM/Teena MulderRating: PGSummary: A story involving Teena Mulder’s emotions concerning the birth of her children and their paternity.Notes:Warning(s):Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created by the wonderfully talented Chris Carter.

He detested cigarettes, the young man thought as he closed the book he was reading. The man smoking beside him was getting on his nerves. Picking up his jacket, he went to pace in the hallway. He didn’t have many friends and Bill was one of them, what would he do if Bill found out he might have fathered the child Teena was now giving birth to. Would he know when he looked into the child’s eyes, would Bill know? There was a chance the young one was Bill’s, it wasn’t improbable.

Teena heard the cries of her little boy before he was even separated from her body. Bill was crying, sobbing heavily as he looked at his little boy and Bill didn’t cry. What if it wasn’t his boy though? They laid the screaming baby on her chest. He was outside of her now; a part of the cold cruel world, and already his identity was a mystery.

“He has my chin,” Bill said looking at the little boy, tears streaming down his face. Maybe he was right, but Teena saw a very old soul reflected in her son. It reminded her of that quiet man who had loved her so tenderly in that summer home. Teena shook the thoughts from her head, for she knew Bill loved her too. He ran his home like a well-oiled machine, he took care of her, and he had their whole life orderly and planned. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, how could one not love someone who knew her so well, who took such good care of her, but he had no mystery in him. This dark secret of her passionate love for his friend was all she had left that wasn’t a part of his well oiled machine, his quiet friend had brought out a side of her she thought she had lost.

He came into the room when our boy was neatly wrapped in a blanket and lying in my arms. The tender way he looked at the little boy made my heart melt, but by then I began to see Bill in my little boy to, he still had no name. Bill had called him Bill Jr. for months, but I didn’t know if that should be his name since he may be no Jr. at all.

“What are we going to name him?” I asked in front of them both.

“Bill Jr. of course,” my husband said without hesitation.

“I don’t know,” his friend said looking at the boy. “Wouldn’t you like your boy to be more individual than that.”

I looked down at the animals on his blanket. The figure that stood out was the Fox. The deceitful Fox, famous in many a children’s story for trying to con other animals. Isn’t that what I was doing, conning my trusting husband into thinking I knew without a doubt that this boy was his.

“Fox,” Teena whispered to herself.

“Fox is no name,” Bill replied, though Teena hadn’t meant it as a name-she was just thinking out loud.

“Actually I like it,” his friend replied, never cracking a smile. Somehow he always maintained his cool demeanor. “He can have your name as a middle name Bill. Instead just being a Jr., he’ll have a name of his own as well as yours. Fox William Mulder.” He moved close to me and the child. “May I?” He said presenting his hands. I gave him the child.

“This boy is going to make his father proud.”

Bill didn’t miss the glances between his wife and his friend, but he ignored them. He’d never like that look of escape in Teena’s eyes that slowly began to settle in as their marriage progressed. She was a good wife, kept house well, cooked. cleaned, but she lost her joy in married life. And while she was pregnant, she had glowed. And he had glowed knowing finally he would have a child. His friend gave the baby to him and left the room, leaving Bill to his family, HIS FAMILY, the words flushed on Bill like a storm as he looked down at Fox. He couldn’t believe he had condoned calling his child Fox.

It was a cold night and little Fox wasn’t holding up well. It didn’t help that he was sick and her husband wasn’t home. Where the hell was he with that cold medicine.

“Mommy, Mommy,” the two year old whined.

“I’m coming Fox, I’m coming.”

Bringing the baby home had distracted her from everything. For two years her life had been Fox and only Fox. Bill said Fox needed a sibling, but she wasn’t ready to plan another baby. She hadn’t planned this one, but she was a mother and his first smile, his first word, his bright smile, his brown hair, the way he called her mommy all had broken through the doubts she had about his identity. Carrying the washcloth she had headed up to Fox’s room, amazed to find him curled up in the arms of a man she hadn’t seen in almost a year. A cigarette was burning in the ashtray beside him, allowing only a flicker of light to fall over his face. But she would have known him in the dark..

“Mommy,” Fox whined again.

“What’s happened to you,” Teena asked taking her son and placing him in his bed. “You never smoked, you detested it.”

“Life has a way of changing a man. We think we can plan the course of our lives and then fate steps in to steer us to a higher purpose.” He looked at the little boy in Teena’s arms. “He’s a beautiful boy, looks just like his daddy, doesn’t he?”

“Your right, he does look like Bill,” Teena spat back at him while Fox curled up beside her. And finally drifted to sleep.

“I can take you away Teena, Bill will be none the wiser.”

“Bill’s my husband and Fox’s father, I won’t dishonor him again. He works too hard.”

“What do you know of his work of his infidelities outside of your marriage. ”

“Your lying,” Teena said through clenched teeth. “Bill loves me.”

“Like you loved him?”

Offended, Teena reached up and smacked her former lover across the face, but immediately regretted leaving the reddened mark. The only thing he did was tell the truth. She could always depend on the blunt truth from him, even when her husband tried to shadow it. He saw the regret in her eyes and he reached for her hand.

“Let the boy sleep,” he said leading her out the room.

“I need you,” he whispered, “You’re the only thing I’ve ever truly loved. This world is full of deceit, but you. . .”

He didn’t finish, just softly touched her lips with his own. Like chocolate melting over a flame, she molded to him. He was still an intoxicating man with a dark air and gentle voice that made her forget the rest of the world. He stepped back, knowing he had her, still owned a place so deep inside her she dare not venture there consciously. She felt lost when she touched him, no not lost, free, free from everything logical and orderly in the world. Outside of both right and wrong, but there was right and wrong and this was wrong.

“Bill,” she whispered, “I’m married to Bill.”

“Is the boy really his?”

“I don’t know. But Bill is his father, he plays with him, he pays for his lively hood, he sends pictures to his parents.”

Teena’s lover pulled a picture from his pocket, a picture of herself and baby Fox.

“You got it?”

“Bill has the same picture, he showed it to me. Did you want me to have a picture of you or a picture of him?”

Teena didn’t answer, because she didn’t know why she wanted him to have it. When the pictures had arrived, ready to be sent to family members, she had looked at her copy and then at the letter she had received at his last known address. At the time, she hadn’t seen him in months and cursed him for disappearing so abruptly. He sent her a long letter, full of beautiful, enchanting, language that confused her and enthralled her all at once, all the time he eloquently stated why they could not be, how Bill was one of his few friends.

If Bill had not tumbled through the door at that exact moment, she might have given into him, to those passions he fueled deep down inside her. But had fate stepped into to help her or hurt her. For he would again appear in the mysterious shadows. When Bill had his friends over, he would always be there, boring into her soul. And unable to contain herself, she let him into her body repeatedly. She could have died when she found out they were throwing him a bachelor party, that he was getting married. Ironically, this information was leaked to her the day she found out she was pregnant.

He heard the giggling of the two children as he stood outside the house. He wasn’t prepared to go in and look at them. His wedding ring was like fire on his hand whenever he looked at her. He had looked into the eyes of the children, wondering if they were his, if he could see himself. There had been no question with Jeffery, but Fox had been conceived when he was a different man and thereby he wanted to believe a symbol of a purer time in his life lived and breathed. Sammantha had come along when he was looking to find that man again a shred of him always existed with Teena. But had his life been the one that brought forth there’s or was it just something he wanted to believe so badly, he was making the connection up in his mind. Everytime he looked into the children’s eyes, he asked himself, Who’s children were they?

DZ -1999

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One Response to “Who’s Child is This?”

Just wanted to stop by and say that I adore this story! Read it more than once, and it deals with some of my favourite X-Files subject matter — pre-XF stuff. I really enjoyed the way you portrayed Teena, and her relationship with a young CSM…wow, just good writing, and a great story all round! Thanks for the entertainment while I would have sat here otherwise bored at work

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Welcome to RhondaWeasley.com. Dawn is a writer, theatre artist, and film maker. She loves to create and be a part of the creative. This is my webspace playground, for blogging, displaying my work, and general all-around fan fun.